I am a Rationer

Hi, 

My name is Lauren and I am a Rationer. 

Is that even a word? Rationer? Rationeer? Ration-er? Rationalist? 

I am whatever the correct word is. 

I first expressed my rationing-ness to you in this post about my Sugar Scrub usage. Really folks, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

On a daily basis, I ration things like water, food, paper, and office supplies. My family has dubbed me a "Water Rationer". On a weekly/monthly basis, I ration goods and activities such as reading my magazines, using greeting cards, using face wash and other expensive beauty supplies, CRAFT SUPPLIES, etc.

Some people might call it 'hoarding' instead of 'rationing', but I am of the firm belief that there is a serious distinction between the two. By my definition, rationing is using up a precious resource very slooooooowly, at a snails pace even, as to prolong the benefit of the good/activity over as long a life as possible. I am a true savor-er. Seriously, anyone that has ever been around me eating food, particularly creme brulee, can attest to this fact. I will contemplate every morsel of my creme brulee, it literally takes me 20 minutes to eat about 6 ounces of it. 

As I sit here and think back to the things I have rationed so lovingly, they really are the things or activities that have brought me more joy than anything. 

I.love.reading.magazines. I cannot stress this enough. I have stacks and stacks that I scour for little tidbits of inspirations. I read and reread these gems 3 or 4 times just in case I missed something. Then, I store all of the good ones in the basement and read them again at the gym a year or two later). A lot of people have called this hoarding, but its not, I just love the magazines and I USE them!

Now that I've aired my dirty-rationing-laundry, I can explain how this relates to you all. 

You see, I am crafting all of the time. I am taking pictures of these crafts all of the time. I actually craft WAY MORE than I blog. (Blogger and I have not been getting along lately and I am getting a little irritated with exerting the great effort to post something, and then having my entire post not save or disappear). 

So, in my rationing ways, I save up all of these projects and photos for times when I am running a little dry in the crafting department, and then I will post a project I did a little while back so that the blog doesn't go dormant. 

Well. My sister accidentally dumped a beer on my laptop and I lost everything. EVERYTHING. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Of course, not everything before the last time I backed-up (around Christmas). 

I did lose about 6 months worth of un-documented projects. I felt like Carrie from Sex and the City when she never backed up any of her writings. You know, this picture:

 

Anyway. These pictures included finished projects such as, my Chive Blossom Vinegar,  this Embroidered Pillow, and other various projects. I would re-take pictures of these things and make up a post about them and yadda yadda, but I also STRONGLY DISLIKE repeating myself. 

Anyway. I apologize for my absence, as I try to keep the blog peppered with posts and fun, but I have been battling my dead computer for about 2 months now and I am finally calling it. Time of Death 7/30/2012 at 10:00 PM. Time to move on with my life. 

HOLLER! 

Plum Blossoms

I finished this quilt just in this nick of time for the Modern Quilt Guild contest. Literally. I emailed my entry in last night at about 10:30. Woops. 

It was a big push this week to get the quilt finished. 

On Tuesday, yes Tuesday, I still hadn't finished the backing. I had to get on that. Remember that this was my vision?  

(Ironing this was one of the LEAST FUN ironings I have ever been involved in, no lie.)

(There is the entire back. I LOVE IT.)

Now, onto the basting. This is usually my absolute least favorite part, but, now that I am a spray baster it couldn't be easier! I really cannot say enough about spray basting. Once you learn the quirks and what not to do, it really is awesome. It probably took me 1/2 hour to baste this whole thing. It is too bad that basting spray is expensive. The total for this quilt probably cost me $14 (including 40% off coupons at Joann's of course).

Time to get ready for quilting! I had a vision. See the plum colored fabric... I wanted to quilt a straight-line spiral all the way around the plum color. I had no idea which thread color to use. The fabric colors vary so much, that I didn't know what would work best.

 
Given how much purple there is in the quilt, I think that the purple wins. Also, give how much yellow there is on the back, I used a great yellow variegated thread for the backing.

 (Getting the quilt folded and ready to go under the machine)

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the picture above? 

This is where the problems started. It took me 45 minutes to make the first "spiral" around the quilt and the entire time it was mostly miserable. Because of the size of the quilt, I was continually turning the quilt and sometimes, as shown above, I had THE ENTIRE quilt going through the neck of my machine. IT WAS MISERABLE. And, I thought that I was going to destroy my machine. I was literally shoving the quilt through and pulling and tugging on it. It wasn't good. I got halfway through the second "spiral" and called it quilts. This was not going to work. Especially not when I only had 2 days to complete it.

I had riiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppppppppppppp all of those stitches out. Thank you to Conan for keeping me awake.

Ok. On to quilting plan No. 2. Motif quilting. I decided to trace the center flower and quilt that all over the entire quilt.

Then I had to practice. See... I am not good at free motion quilting. Not good at all. I am certainly better at it now though!
 

Now that I had the pattern "down" I chalked up the pattern over the quilt. Because the flower motif is about 15x15, I could only work by chalking up 2 or 3 flowers at a time, because I knew that the chalk would wear off too quickly. I did intentionally start and stop off the top and on the batting instead so that there wasn't any stopping and starting visible on the quilt. The whole quilting wasn't TOO bad. But the motif was a little too big. I would never do one that big again, ever. I think something under 8 inches would be amazingly easy to work with. I still had to fight with this quilt a little bit to complete the flower.

This was the first full flower that I quilted, and you do not need to tell me how "rough" it looks. It looks quite bad. 

But, I did get a lot better!

 

Onto binding! I chose this fantastic solid that I used on both the quilt top and quilt back. 

 

 

 (For me, this is a very good machine quilting job.)

 (This one, not so much. At least I have learned to match the needle thread with the binding color, not with the quilt top color. It irritates me WAY MORE to have the thread show on the binding than on the quilt top.)

Plum Blossoms glamor shots...

 

My one small regret.... not hand quilting this center flower in time for the contest. How gorgeous would a wonderfully embellished focal point have been? 
 

 (Really Lauren, another cat picture?)

These are the pictures that I entered into the contest. Lighting in our house is SOOOO bad. You were allowed to enter 2 pictures, one of the entire quilt and another detail shot. Only 2 pictures! Brutal. 

 

 

Do you like the quilt? What do you think, do you think Denise Schmidt will pick me to win? Haha, a girl can dream. We shall see...... results of the contest will be available on October 15th. I won't have to wait all that long. 

Quilt Stats:

Fabric: Anna Maria Horner (obvi) Garden Party and bits of Good Folks. Also, I used gorgeous Kona Cotton solids.

Pattern: My own. One Big Log Cabin Block

Batting: Warm and White 100% cotton

Backing: More Garden Party and Kona Cotton solids used in the front

Size: Finished 75x75 square. It is a perfect size for snuggling. I already did it once today.

Be sure to check out my flickr account for all finished projects. Actually, this quilt knocks SEVERAL items off my Bucket List. It takes care of the following:

• Chomping into the Anna Maria Horner fabrics that I have been hoarding and was previously too scared to use
• Quilt a motif pattern over an entire quilt
• Quilt using variegated threads

In case you are new to the blog, I have a lot of things I want to do. I am that person that looks at something and says.. "oh I can make that". I have been saying that for years and compiled a wicked bucket list. I am making some headway though, thankfully.

Phew, long post!

Holler 

Sorry, Chris

I guess that I have never really had them all unpacked and in the same room before, maybe that's why this was a shocker.

I think that there are about 52 pairs total. Do flip flops count as shoes though? I don't REALLY think so.

 

These are some of my favorites... 
 

Well, I guess I don't need anymore shoes for a while. You know what though? In that entire heap of shoes, not ONE PAIR of plain black leather pumps. Not one pair! Probably because I rip through a pair every 4 months and then just chuck them. So I will be buying a new pair of pumps, just putting that in the record books.

Don't judge. 

Holler

Come on, IRENE!

Our lovely tree has been uprooted and is dangling by a thread over our attic, master bedroom, and garage. The only thing holding it up is one branch of the other big tree there to the left. These trees are actually wicked tall and are entangled up there a ways. 

I will leave it up to you to guess whether our insurance company would rather cover the cost of removing the tree now, or wait until the tree plunges through our house and cover the cost of that. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Boooooo Hisssssss

Holler

I got it, I got it!

It finallllyyyyy arrived in the mail! Yay!

Like a good little quilter, I read the preface. Then I promptly follow the instructions and printed out the entire packet that came with the CD. 
 

 (Wow... a slight waste of paper. I didn't want to alter the PDF's in case it would ruin the template, but it hurt my feelings a bit to use all this paper)

 (I have my glorious stack of 106 templates ready to be cut out)

So I gathered up all of my supplies, sat down, and got ready for lotssss of cutting up: 
 

 (Permanent markers to write the template number on each template, scissors, the stack of 106 templates, baggies to store the templates, and old scrap manilla folders, and a pen for tracing)

Originally, I had every intention of sitting down tonight with the entire stack of templates and all of the supplies and making every single one of the templates. Umm... after 1, 2, & 3 I wanted to give up already. I can't stand sitting down that long. So I decided that it would be wise and not make me angry if I just cut out the templates that I need for the blocks I am doing that specific week. Doesn't that sound better?

 

Want to know something really sad? So, I got the book today. As you've seen in my past posts, I have all of my prints picked out already and they are waiting to go. The only thing missing is the AMH solids I have been waiting for. Well, good news is that they were delivered today! YAY! 

Oh wait, no, my husband had to work late tonight and he has the key to our mailbox, so as of 9:00 PM (right now) he is still not home. I am staring longingly out our apartment window at the mailbox wishing it would just open itself. What a lesson in patience. I should also point out the fact that I rationalized skipping the gym because I would be home quilting, and instead I've been eating. Ahhh, fail.

xoxo